[zachmorris]

do i have to set these settings on every start up of iarl?
i changed it to external maybe here is the error? because i really changed it

with the dvd playback i meant these entries

I think you pointed out yet another bug if the file is already found locally, fixed in a new version (1.3.3). I've also updated the android launch commands per this thread, including all the emulators he lists (not just retroplayer), so I'm hoping it works without any more fiddling.

I tried to setup an android virtual machine for testing, but have had a lot of trouble getting Kodi to work with it, so I'm still unfortunately not able to test android.

[zachmorris]

Hello zach,just one question, with every update I loose my setting of the external launcher and emu core...I have to set again all the emulator...am I doing something wrong,is this normal or is their a way around this?
A part that the add of best of game is very cool and it seems you add japanese rom in some romset which is great!!
Thanks for your work!!
Cheers

Glad it's working for you. The settings issue you mention is a limitation of my addon currently. All of the data is in the addons folder, including the xml files that you update with settings. When the addon is updated, everything is just overwritten. It's on my list of things to fix/update, but in the meantime backing up any settings or favorites files is the only option. I'll have to come up with a scheme to save settings and favorites to the userdata folder.

If you're a fan of Japanese games, you can also check the unfiltered lists. Those include all games. I've personally filtered out most Japanese games so if thats what your interested in, thats where they would be.

[zachmorris]

Version 1.3.3 is available:
- Fixed bug in prompt re-download setting
- Added functions to launch dosbox game archives that utilize configuration files
- Added best of Sierra Online and Lucasarts games. Space Quest and Kings Quest! Note, not all of these seem to work. I believe they’re better suited for scummvm which is not yet included with retroplayer. A good number of them do launch with DOSBox though (via configuration file). ScummVM seems to be a manual process, so after the game is downloaded, you have to load it into Scumm, then launch it, etc. I can't seem to find any automatic way to launch a game directly.
- Updated external launch commands (again) for Android. Third time’s the charm??

[lefty420]

Welcome back mate hope all is well and you had a good holiday Amazing work on the update can confirm Linux is now working with external retroarch. Love the best of additions nice touch. I was just wondering if there was a way the add on could suspend kodi while the emulator was running to improve speed issues? Great work mate I'll be having a good old play.

Side not regarding Scummvm loading automatically. If my memory serves me well, I believe I had the same issue adding scum titles to the popular arcade os hyperspin.
It's been quite a while since I played with hyperspin, but if I remember correctly. For hyperspin to boot the games you would create a txt file with the same name as the game directory, in your scum game folder and point hyperspin to those txt files. It would automatically boot the title in scum.

For example Day of the tentacle would have a directory called tentacle and a tentacle.txt

Not sure if that helps the situation but it worked with my hyperspin setup.
Every little helps and all.
All the best
Lefty


Found a few cores were missing from the external_command_database as well as some new commands for other linux based emulators.

PHP Code:

<launcher name="RetroArch dosbox (DOS)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>%APP_PATH% -L /usr/lib/libretro/dosbox_libretro.so "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="RetroArch Mame (Arcade)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>%APP_PATH% -L /usr/lib/libretro/mame_libretro.so "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="RetroArch Mame 2003 (Arcade)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>%APP_PATH% -L /usr/lib/libretro/mame2003_libretro.so "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="RetroArch Mame 2010 (Arcade)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>%APP_PATH% -L /usr/lib/libretro/mame2010_libretro.so "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="RetroArch Mame 2014(Arcade)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>%APP_PATH% -L /usr/lib/libretro/mame2014_libretro.so "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher> 


PHP Code:

<launcher name="Mupen64plus Linux (N64)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>/usr/games/mupen64plus "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="Scummvm Linux (PC)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>/usr/games/scummvm "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="Dolphin Linux (NGC/WII)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>/usr/games/dolphin-emu "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="PCSX Linux (ps1)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>/usr/games/pcsx "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher>
<launcher name="PCSX2 Linux (ps2)" os="Nix">
<launcher_command>/usr/games/PCSX2 "%ROM_PATH%"</launcher_command>
</launcher> 


[bakito]

Ok thanks for your answer!
Cheers

[zachmorris]

Welcome back mate hope all is well and you had a good holiday Amazing work on the update can confirm Linux is now working with external retroarch. Love the best of additions nice touch. I was just wondering if there was a way the add on could suspend kodi while the emulator was running to improve speed issues? Great work mate I'll be having a good old play.

Thanks for the additional launchers, I'll add those to the addon. I think suspending Kodi in Kodibuntu is possible via shell script, same as OpenElec (maybe even the same one? I'm not sure). I'll try it out and add that as an option if I can get it working.

[nhunt80]

Hello,

First, just want to say that this addon is an exceptional replacement for RCB/AL. Fantastic work!

It seems that I am having the same audio issue as user 'Animal'. Like on his setup, everything is set correctly in RetroArch and the audio works perfectly fine when a rom is launched from within RetroArch, or even from the commandline through SSH using WinSCP.

I am using OpenElec 6.0 w/ the retroarch-openelec-1.2.2 addon by ttsemek on a ASUS Chromebox.

The only issue with all of IARL is that when the rom is launched from within IARL then retroarch plays without sound. I pinpointed the location of where IARL is launching commands from down to romlaunch_OE.sh (which of course has the executable permissions set) and tried fiddling with the parameters, code, and even adding some 'sleep' cmds to no avail.

I see that you referred Animal over to the OpenElec forums, but it seems that this is an issue with how IARL is launching RetroArch and not with RetroArch nor OpenElec per se. I am honestly banging my head over this issue at this point and have tried everything I can think of.

My last idea was to set IARL to provide Programs, so that it shows up under 'Programs' (instead of Video) and launch it from there and see if the rom would launch with sound.. however when I try this I get an 'Addon Error' and it fails to work. Here is the log information from kodi.log when it fails to be set to provide Programs:

13:05:24 T:140140110391040 ERROR: EXCEPTION Thrown (PythonToCppException) : -->Python callback/script returned the following error<--
- NOTE: IGNORING THIS CAN LEAD TO MEMORY LEAKS!
Error Type: <type 'exceptions.ImportError'>
Error Contents: No module named resources.lib.xbmcswift2b
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/storage/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.iarl/resources/lib/update_addonxml_provides_program.py", line 1, in <module>
from util import *
File "/storage/.kodi/addons/plugin.program.iarl/resources/lib/util.py", line 5, in <module>
from resources.lib.xbmcswift2b import xbmcgui
ImportError: No module named resources.lib.xbmcswift2b
-->End of Python script error report<--

Any suggestions to get this enjoyment killing issue solved Zach? Any way to fix the error to make it provide Programs so that I can try that as my last idea for solving the audio issue?

====================================================
====================================================

If it helps any, here is a very interesting Error from the Kodi.log when launching SMB3-NES using NESTOPIA from within IARL:

13:12:53 T:140140873787136 ERROR: CAESinkALSA - snd_pcm_writei(-32) Broken pipe - trying to recover

There are a few other notices, warnings, and errors in that log section, but nothing else relevant to the sound issue.

-----------------------------

And for comparison, here is ALL the Kodi.log entries when launching the exact same rom with the same core from within RetroArch. Sound works fine and notice how few log entries are generated. There also isn't any error about a Broken ALSA pipe as I highlighted in bold above:

13:19:48 T:140140563465984 NOTICE: Thread JobWorker start, auto delete: true
13:19:48 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: Thread LanguageInvoker start, auto delete: false
13:19:49 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: -->Python Interpreter Initialized<--
13:19:49 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: IARL_INFO: Loading sqlite3 as DB engine
13:19:49 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: /storage/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/plugin.program.iarl/.storage/
13:19:49 T:140140110391040 WARNING: [resources.lib.xbmcswift2b] No converter provided, unicode should be used, but returning str value
13:19:49 T:140140110391040 WARNING: Previous line repeats 3 times.
13:19:49 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: [resources.lib.xbmcswift2b] Request for "/" matches rule for function "index"
13:19:49 T:140140580251392 NOTICE: Thread BackgroundLoader start, auto delete: false
13:19:49 T:140140101932800 NOTICE: Thread JobWorker start, auto delete: true
13:19:49 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: Thread BackgroundLoader start, auto delete: false
13:19:58 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: Previous line repeats 1 times.
13:19:58 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: Thread LanguageInvoker start, auto delete: false
13:19:58 T:140140110391040 NOTICE: -->Python Interpreter Initialized<--

If there is any other way I can help you provide insight into this issue, please let me know. If you need it, I can send you the entire Kodi.log I referenced in this post.

Thanks in advance!

[nhunt80]

Ok, I am one step closer to solving the aforementioned IARL audio issue.

It seems that when a rom is launched from within IARL (and both Kodi & Retroarch are set to the same audio device .. 0,3 in my case for HDMI) Kodi takes precedence of use on the audio device and therefore Retroarch can't use the audio device that is already being used by Kodi. This doesn't seem to be an issue when Retroarch is launched from the Kodi menu and then a rom is loaded.. only when a rom is launched from IARL is there an audio device conflict.

If you go to Settings > System > Audio Output > Audio Output device and change it to ALC Analog, so that Kodi is instead using the 3.5 mm headphone jack as the audio device, you will now see (for those with this issue, such as Animal and myself) that you will get sound from Kodi through the headphones, and sound WILL WORK in Retroarch when a rom is launched from within IARL.. the "ERROR: CAESinkALSA - snd_pcm_writei(-32) Broken pipe - trying to recover" also goes away and is no longer generated when Kodi is using a different audio device.

So as a proposed patch to this issue that I and Animal are having, is it possible to have IARL change the Kodi audio device to the headphone jack just before a rom is launched, and then set the Kodi audio device back to HDMI after the rom has already loaded (with working sound)?

[Shinoby92]

Version 1.3.3 is available:
- Fixed bug in prompt re-download setting
- Added functions to launch dosbox game archives that utilize configuration files
- Added best of Sierra Online and Lucasarts games. Space Quest and Kings Quest! Note, not all of these seem to work. I believe they’re better suited for scummvm which is not yet included with retroplayer. A good number of them do launch with DOSBox though (via configuration file). ScummVM seems to be a manual process, so after the game is downloaded, you have to load it into Scumm, then launch it, etc. I can't seem to find any automatic way to launch a game directly.
- Updated external launch commands (again) for Android. Third time’s the charm??

Still doesn't work on android :-(

[pat.vallee91]

Does IARL support save files? NES games (ex. Legend of Zelda) and the gba games that I've tried and snes games don't save my progress. I've tried both default and custom rom download locations. Does it even support saving? I am using the newest version of retroplayer kodi and using retroplayer to play the roms through IARL

[zachmorris]

Ok, I am one step closer to solving the aforementioned IARL audio issue.

It seems that when a rom is launched from within IARL (and both Kodi & Retroarch are set to the same audio device .. 0,3 in my case for HDMI) Kodi takes precedence of use on the audio device and therefore Retroarch can't use the audio device that is already being used by Kodi. This doesn't seem to be an issue when Retroarch is launched from the Kodi menu and then a rom is loaded.. only when a rom is launched from IARL is there an audio device conflict.

If you go to Settings > System > Audio Output > Audio Output device and change it to ALC Analog, so that Kodi is instead using the 3.5 mm headphone jack as the audio device, you will now see (for those with this issue, such as Animal and myself) that you will get sound from Kodi through the headphones, and sound WILL WORK in Retroarch when a rom is launched from within IARL.. the "ERROR: CAESinkALSA - snd_pcm_writei(-32) Broken pipe - trying to recover" also goes away and is no longer generated when Kodi is using a different audio device.

So as a proposed patch to this issue that I and Animal are having, is it possible to have IARL change the Kodi audio device to the headphone jack just before a rom is launched, and then set the Kodi audio device back to HDMI after the rom has already loaded (with working sound)?

Hmmm. Yeah, I'm not sure if it's possible to change audio from an addon or not. I'll have to look into it. Looking around the openelec forums, I see it still may be possible to update the retroarch config to fix audio. Here's some additional info.
Some people have had success with changing the retroarch.cfg to:

Code:

audio_driver = sdl
audio_device = hw:1,7
or
audio_device = hw:0,0

[zachmorris]

Does IARL support save files? NES games (ex. Legend of Zelda) and the gba games that I've tried and snes games don't save my progress. I've tried both default and custom rom download locations. Does it even support saving? I am using the newest version of retroplayer kodi and using retroplayer to play the roms through IARL

Not directly (at least not yet). I think you can setup retroarch to load the save state after loading the game, no? I haven't done this in a while, but I believe I setup hotkeys in the past to load a saved game. Here's an example on how to do that.

Code:

#Hotkeys- Hotkeys enable you to press a combination of buttons to do such things as exit emulators, save states,
# and load states, as well as any other functionality in an emulator. (In the example below 8 is the select key
# and 9 is the start key so when I hold down select and press start it will exit the emulator.)
input_enable_hotkey_btn = 8
input_save_state_btn = 5
input_load_state_btn = 4
input_state_slot_increase_axis = +0
input_state_slot_decrease_axis = -0

Would that not work in some cases?

[nhunt80]

Even when using 'sdl' instead of 'alsa' as the audio_driver in retroarch, I still get the "ERROR: CAESinkALSA - snd_pcm_writei(-32) Broken pipe - trying to recover" followed by no sound when the rom is launched from IARL.

The only thing that works as of now is what I mentioned of changing the audio device in Kodi to anything else. Then I will get sound when I launch a rom from IARL. The problem of course is that when I want to use Kodi again and get sound for watching media, I have to switch the audio device in Kodi back to HDMI. When I want to use IARL again, switch the audio device in Kodi again, and so on and so forth...

If there is a way to automate this switching through the addon, it will certainly serve as a patch and could be enabled as an option for users having issues with the audio. I will keep looking into this and I really appreciate any further assistance you can provide.

-----------------

Also, just so that it is crystal clear, the audio_device setting within Retroarch is not the issue, as it is already correctly set to hw:0,3 (TV HDMI). I did however try out the hw:1,7 suggestion (which isn't even in my 'aplay -l' device list) just to exhaust all possible solutions. I was hoping using the SDL driver would solve the issue, but the results are exactly the same as using the ALSA driver.

[zachmorris]

If there is a way to automate this switching through the addon, it will certainly serve as a patch and could be enabled as an option for users having issues with the audio. I will keep looking into this and I really appreciate any further assistance you can provide.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I did a little more digging and found the same issue was found using Advanced Launcher. If you're up for testing, I'd like to verify this fixes the problem before I include it in the addon. In the addon.py file in plugin.program.iarl. You can change the lines:

Code:

xbmc.sleep(500) #This pause seems to help... I'm not really sure why
external_command = subprocess.call(current_external_command,shell=True)

to:

Code:

xbmc.audioSuspend()
xbmc.enableNavSounds(False)
xbmc.sleep(500) #This pause seems to help... I'm not really sure why
external_command = subprocess.call(current_external_command,shell=True)
xbmc.audioResume()
xbmc.enableNavSounds(True)

If that fixes the issue, I'll add an advanced setting in the addon to allow audio to be suspended. Also, can you remind me of your machine setup as far as audio connection?

[nhunt80]

Code:

xbmc.audioSuspend()
xbmc.enableNavSounds(False)
xbmc.sleep(500) #This pause seems to help... I'm not really sure why
external_command = subprocess.call(current_external_command,shell=True)
xbmc.audioResume()
xbmc.enableNavSounds(True)

Suspending the audio device to then launch Retroarch and then re-enabling it thereafter is certainly a better idea than switching it to a different device back and forth. Seems others already tried driving with square wheels. Great find!

Works 100%. Zach is officially my favorite character on Saved by the Bell.

My hardware setup is an ASUS Chromebox running OE 6.0 x64 using stereo TV HDMI. I think it's more probable that this issue is hardware independent, and probably results from which version of OE and thus Kodi you are using. (Different versions of Kodi handling the audio device differently when external app is launched, etc.)

I wouldn't even enable this as an option if the patch works perfectly fine on your setup as well. Just hard-code it into the addon, because I am sure that those who were not having this issue won't notice any difference as everything will continue working for them.

------------------------------------------------

On another note, I haven't used IARL long enough yet to see what happens when an update is pushed in the repo, but I did notice someone in this thread mentioning that all of the external launcher cmd specifications for each rom section in IARL are reset and blanked out upon an addon update. If you can make it so that IARL saves all settings to a seperate config file that remains unaffected by addon updates, then this addon will be 100% complete as far as issues are concerned.

Again great job on this amazing addon!